Hasta La Gadget!

News that Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings is joining the Board of Directors for Facebook should make for an interesting note in the next movie, but beyond that it’s unclear what it means for either company. Hastings successfully navigated Netflix through the process of going public which many assume will be a next step for the social media giant, so his experience could come in handy, and also serves on the board of Microsoft, which owns a stake in Facebook. That goes without mentioning plans by Netflix to make another run at integrating social features into its movie service after the original implementation fell apart and Warner Bros. recently offering video on-demand through Facebook. Other than facing a lawsuit from Paul Allen, Netflix and Facebook share an intense public backlash whenever either one changes their homepage, but we’re not sure how he could help there — have you seen the redesigned Netflix.com?

Continue reading Netflix CEO Reed Hastings joins Facebook’s Board of Directors

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings joins Facebook’s Board of Directors originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ok, this one’s odd. In fact, we didn’t believe the images until a video just surfaced showing Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, foolishly asking a crowd of people to “put away their cameras” for the unveiling of something “super confidential,” codenamed “Sea Ray.” Naturally, a few people ignored the plea for “no pictures please” and, indeed, someone leaked what appears to be a Nokia-produced video of the unveiling to the blogosphere. What is it? Why, it’s Nokia’s first Windows Phone. While it looks nearly identical to the just announced N9, the different LED placement on the back (in line with the same 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens) confirms it’s a new device as does the additional hardware button (for shutter release, we presume) along the side. And the fact that it’s running Windows Phone 7 Mango seals the deal. See a few more shots and the full uncut video (and relevant snippet) after the break.

[Thanks, Advil and Zeban]

Continue reading Nokia’s first Windows Phone: images and video, codenamed ‘Sea Ray’

Nokia’s first Windows Phone: images and video, codenamed ‘Sea Ray’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft is sending out a subtle reminder this week that, despite all of the fanfare surrounding its newly announced service, Apple isn’t the only game in the cloud. Redmond has unveiled updates to SkyDrive, including speed boosts, a revamped UI, and improvements to photo viewing. The latest version of the almost four-year-old service has cut wait time on actions like clicking folders, from six to nine seconds down to 100 to 300 milliseconds. The updated software also features H.264 video playback, a navigation system more akin to desktop browsing, and a single view for files, docs, and photos. Let Microsoft hold your hand through a video tour of its cloud below.

Continue reading Microsoft upgrades SkyDrive, reminds us of its place in the cloud (video)

Microsoft upgrades SkyDrive, reminds us of its place in the cloud (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Dropbox offer "cloud" services hosting data over the internet. (Photo: Extra Medium/Flickr)

With the recent announcement of iCloud, Apple joins Google, Amazon and Microsoft in their aggressive push into cloud computing, in a race to reel customers into their media ecosystems.

The general idea of the “cloud” is to store your media on the internet so you can access it from any device anywhere, as opposed to leaving it on a hard drive. Now with cloud services, we can juggle around our data between multiple gadgets.

Have music on your PC that you want to listen to on your smartphone? Boom, stream it from the cloud. Want to access a document on another computer? Bam, grab it from your web-connected “cloud” drive. Ideally, with cloud services you can access other types of media, such as photos, e-books and videos, across multiple devices, too.

But cloud services vary between companies so much that the buzzword can get awfully confusing. What exactly do you get? Is it just online storage? Or is it streaming media? Both? In the chart below, we give a side-by-side comparison of five major cloud services, in terms of features, device compatibility and storage space.

Pretty complicated differences, right? For further clarity, here’s what you need to know about how each service works.

iCloud

Apple designed its iCloud service to work as if it were invisible. Snap a photo on your iPhone and it pops up on your Mac or Windows PC. Edit a document in the Pages app on a Mac, and that same edit appears on the Pages app on your iPhone. Buy a song on iTunes on your Mac, and on your iPhone you can re-download it; same with e-books you buy through iBooks.

Additionally, iCloud enables automatic wireless backups for iOS devices. Each Apple customer gets 5 GB of free space for backups, documents and e-mail; the photos, music and books don’t count toward the 5 GB.

Apple has left some questions unanswered as to whether iCloud will have a web app interface for accessing these services from any device with a browser, like MobileMe did. However, we believe it’s shortsighted to think that iCloud would not eventually have a web app suite to complement the aforementioned services.

Amazon

Amazon’s Cloud Drive is as straightforward as a cloud service gets: It’s just an online storage locker. You put files in there, and they’re online. You can access the files from any device that supports Flash. (That means Cloud Drive is useless for any iPhone or iPad customer, since the devices do not support Flash.) Sign up for a Cloud Drive and you get 5 GB for free; you can pay an extra $1 per extra gigabyte each year.

Google

Google’s “cloud” suite can be confusing: There’s no one-stop destination that hosts all your media. You have to go to Picasa to deal with your photos, Gmail for your e-mail, Music Beta for online music storage and Google Docs for your documents. Each service offers at least 1 GB of free space, and you can plunk down an extra $5 per year to add 20 gigs for most of its services. You can rent up to 16 TB each year for $4,000 (you know, in case you’re trying to boot up Skynet).

Considering its adoption of the Windows Phone metro style, its not surprising to hear that Windows 8’s latest leaked build sports a metro-inspired virtual keyboard and traces of code that could bring SMS 3G enabled Windows 8 devices. An App store and feature licensing, however? That’s interesting. Buried in the Windows 8 code, Microsoft enthusiasts have found strings that may hint at a Windows App store, and the ability to activate or deactivate certain OS features through that store. Will this be the end of “Home,” “Pro,” and “Ultimate” editions of Microsoft’s flagship product? We wouldn’t hold our breath. Still, Windows à la Carte doesn’t sound half bad. Hit up the source link to see the code (and speculation) for yourself.

Continue reading New Windows 8 leak hints at SMS support, feature licensing, geo-location

New Windows 8 leak hints at SMS support, feature licensing, geo-location originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Jun 2011 02:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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